First Days
by Ayien
Summary: It's another war, and he can't find it in himself to be suprised. Iruka sits in the dark classroom and wonders if he can honestly say it's worth it. Or if he's only been sending off children to their deaths. For Plotbunny Adoption Agency


The first day Iruka sees it happening is a Monday.

"Thank you all for coming."

Tsunade looks tired, her face drawn and hands flat on the desk, nails painted an ominous red, eyes roaming over the assembled shinobi in front of her. Iruka stands beside Naruto, one arm looped loosely around his boy's shoulders. Not really a boy anymore, now that he was sixteen.

The air in the office is stifling from all the chuunin and jounin crowded inside it, all looking at this woman, their Hokage, their leader. It is silent and Iruka can feel Naruto shudder against him as Tsunade says, "We have received word that the Hidden Village of Sound and Akatsuki have formed an alliance to take down Konoha." A few gasps ripple through the crowd, but Iruka can honestly say that he is not surprised. Some of them clap, thrust fists into the air, nudge each other and whisper how they will win, 'easy.' Tsunade's eyes flicker to pierce through the crowd to Naruto, who straightens, and Iruka has never felt so proud, or so sad, in his life.

"They have declared war." She slumps in her chair, shoulders bowing under the weight, and Iruka is reminded that no matter how powerful this woman is, no matter that she is one of the Three Legendary Sannin, no matter that she is Hokage, she is all-too, terrifyingly human.

They are dismissed, and as the shinobi loiter in the hallway, unsure how to react, they can hear from within the office Tsunade's breaking whisper, "How strange, that they should applaud their own deaths."

And then, only the sound of weeping.

* * *

The first day Iruka lies is a Tuesday.. 

He turns away from the board where he is sketching a diagram of the chakra circulatory system to see Izumi's tiny hand in the air, trembling with excitement. He dreads the question that he knows is coming, has seen from far away but is unable to run from or stop.

"Yes, Izumi?"

"My dad said that we're going to war." Her eyes are wise, Iruka belatedly notices. She finishes the question, and the words are somehow vile when said in her high-pitched little-girl voice, "Is my daddy going to die?" He blinks. The chalk breaks in his fingers. He has to say something- the teacher's manual said to lie, said to try and shield them from their world of blood and fear for as long as they can- every second of silence is a second too long, a silence they'll seize on as proof that he is lying-

He feels his facial muscles crack as he forces his mouth to move. "Of course not, Izumi. That's a silly question."

She puts her hand down, smiles. Iruka, watching the children's eyes, feels sick. They know he is lying, he can see it in their eyes, but they push the knowledge down to where it can never return from, because they are only , _only_ children, just seven-year-olds with dried milk crusted around their lips and snotty noses, and they have learned denial, the greatest of shinobi skills.

He turns back to the board, picks up a piece of chalk that suddenly feels unfamiliar to him, but he can still feel their empty gazes boring into his back.

* * *

The first day Iruka dies is a Wednesday.

It comes in the mail, like it does to everybody above chuunin rank. A black envelope, with the seal of the Hokage in white wax on the back.

He thinks, hysterically, that he hates those envelopes. And isn't that silly, to hate an inanimate piece of paper for nothing but the words it contains?

He slits it with a fingernail and opens it, deliberate, calm, even though inside he is screaming to drop it and run, to burn it and watch it crumple into ash. He unfolds the creamy, snow-white vellum, lays it flat on the table, and lets his eyes- carefully, he must be careful or else he will break, he knows he will- gaze at it.

It says the words he knows it must.

_We regret to inform you that on Tuesday, December 14, Nara Shikamaru, Yamanaka Ino, and Akimichi Chouji fell in the line of duty, defending a civilian village from the Sound Four._

_The memorial service will be at-_

Iruka lets his head fall into his hands, and he wonders how long it will be until the wails of grief he can hear from his open window spread to cover the entire town in a blanket of sorrow.

* * *

The first day Iruka cries is a Thursday.

He is standing in the back of the crowd with Kakashi, watching fifty or more Hyuuga, they of the moon-pale eyes and caged robins singing from every tree, join hands and stand around the pile of wood. A pale hand dangles over the edge, wrapped in bandages. Neji sits in his wheelchair, his face forbidding, as if hewn from marble, black mourning kimono blending in with the dusk.

"She just wanted to live." He is surprised to hear himself speaking. Kakashi's hand slips down, and he feels cold fingers curl around his own, taking comfort.

"That is all we ever want," Kakashi answers. Iruka smiles helplessly, and watches as Neji lowers the torch to the pyre, watching fire leap through air to play amongst the forest. The Hyuuga, mourning the loss of one of their own, begin to sing.

_Under the wide and starry sky_

_Dig the grave and let me lie,_

_Glad did I live and gladly die_

_And I laid me down with a will._

_This be the verse you grave for me:_

_Here she lies where she longed to be._

_Home is the sailor, home from the sea,_

_And the hunter home from the hill._

He looks up and sees Naruto, whose face is golden in the light of the fire, his eyes red, red as the roses she gave to him, which, still, are clutched in his hand. There is nothing he can say, nothing that can ease the pain of this loss, this girl who died heroic, died for Neji, who hated her, died in blood and pain.

"Why, Sasuke?" he breathes, remembering a dark boy following a dark path, a boy that Naruto had loved more than anyone else, even this girl being consumed by fire. A boy, now a man, who killed a girl who wanted nothing more than to change.

The last note of the song trails off, and Naruto throws his head back and _howls_, the sound piercing the dark night, a sound of terrible grief and pain and anguish, a sound that holds the voice of Kyuubi, grief for this girl, the only one Naruto had ever trusted so fully.

Iruka is surprised to find himself crying.

* * *

The first day Iruka runs is a Friday.

He opens the letter from the black envelope and spreads it out on the table next to the other five, all opened.

_We regret to inform you that on Thursday, August 25, Haruno Sakura, Rock Lee, Hyuuga Neji, and Ama Tenten died in the line of duty, defending a supply convoy from an attack from Orochimaru and Yakushi Kabuto, who have been killed._

_The memorial service will be-_

Iruka gets up and walks away.

On the day of the memorial, he doesn't go. Instead he sits in his dingy apartment with a cup of sake clenched in his hands, and he drinks it and thinks that the bitterness must be like the taste of death.

After the sun sets, Kakashi comes to his window. He lets him in, like he has always done, and offers him some sake. Kakashi declines, but takes the cigarette. They sit there for a while, smoking and drinking, close together and yet farther apart then they have ever been.

"It was a beautiful service," Kakashi offers in a bored voice.

"I'm sure it was."

Kakashi's hand absently traces letters on his stomach, and it takes a while for Iruka to realize that he is writing 'Sakura.' He says nothing. There is nothing to say to this shadow of a man, who only lives because the alternative is cowardice, and Kakashi, no matter what else he may be, isn't a coward.

Kakashi laughs against the back of his neck, smoke drifting in lazy spirals up to the ceiling, and he murmurs, breath smelling of blood, "As far as my team goes, two out of three isn't bad."

Iruka smiles, because there is nothing else to do.

He smiles, and wonders how long it will be until it is three out of three.

* * *

The first time Iruka gives a eulogy is on a Saturday.

It is raining and somehow this is fitting; that their paths split, came together, and ended in rain.

Almost no one is here. Kiba sits in the first row, his head lolling on his shoulders and a vapid grin plastered across his face, hand petting an invisible dog that had died so long ago. Itachi had made that, Iruka remembers, just like he had made Shino, sitting next to Kiba, no more to stand. Tsunade, her face pale, and fingernails painted black, sits next to Shino, beautiful in a black veil.

There are three coffins, two destined for the Uchiha burial grounds, one destined for the space next to the Fourth Hokage.

One for Uchiha Itachi, the pinnacle, the perfect shinobi, the thing all shinobi aspired to be until that night.

One for Uchiha Sasuke, the man whose vengeance had been stolen from him by the man in the third coffin.

One for Naruto. Beautiful, bright Naruto, the only man to kill two Uchiha. The coffin lid is shut, but Iruka remembers what is underneath it, a man with a missing chest and a hand bloodied with his best friend's life.

There is a conspicuous absence of silver hair and black and red eyes.

He says a few words, pathetic fallacies, so inadequate to describe all that Naruto had been and now would never be.

Kiba wheels Shino out, mumbling to himself, and Iruka walks home through the dark streets, passing the crumbling Ichiraku ramen bar. The owner and his daughter had died a year ago, killed by Kisame.

Naruto had killed Kisame.

When Shizune knocks on his door and tells him that Kakashi was found sprawled in a field of blood impaled by swords on a tree like a sick cross, surrounded by the bodies of over a hundred Oto shinobi, he is not surprised.

After all, he tells her, Kakashi was always too stubborn to die as long as there was something left for him to do, but finally, in the end, he was too craven to live.

* * *

The last day Iruka lives is a Sunday.

He is sitting in his classroom, fingers stroking the cold metal of Naruto's forehead protector, when the door opens and Izumi comes in, her new forehead protector shining in the light from the moon.

"Can I help you?" He looks at this girl, now an orphan, her father and mother killed in a suicide attack by the leader of Akatsuki, and can't find it in himself to regret the lie.

"I'm just here to tell you, Iruka-sensei…" she pauses, sticks her hands in her pockets, "I'm getting shipped out tomorrow to defend the western front." Iruka blinks. Getting sent there is a death sentence, but she doesn't seem to care. He isn't sure if that means he's taught her well or not at all.

"I just wanted to say thank you, for everything." He says nothing. She smiles shyly, bows, and leaves, shutting the door behind her.

She is twelve years old.

Iruka looks at the freshly sharpened kunai in front of him, lays Naruto's forehead protector in front of him, picks the kunai up and turns it in his hands, lays it on his wrist.

He sits in the dark classroom, listening to Izumi's footsteps fade into the mists, and wonders if he can say that it's worth it.

Or if he's only been sending off children to their deaths.


End file.
